Halle Berry's 'Extant': Pregnant with mystery

By Jeanne Jakle :
July 4, 2014
: Updated: July 6, 2014 10:40am

Astronaut Molly Woods (Halle Berry) tries her best to reconnect with her husband (Goran Visnjic) and family after a disturbing encounter in space in “Extant,” a Steven Spielberg production that debuts at 8 p.m. Wednesday on CBS.

Halle Berry plays an astronaut who has problems reconnecting with her family after a solo mission in 'Extant.'

Photo By Sonja Flemming/CBS

"More in Heaven and Earth" -- EXTANT: CBSÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚Â™s new summer series EXTANT is a mystery thriller starring Academy Award-winner Halle Berry as ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚ÂœMolly Woods,ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚Â a female astronaut trying to reconnect with her family after returning from a year in outer space. Her mystifying experiences in space lead to events that will ultimately change the course of human history. EXTANT premieres Wednesday, July 9 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT).Coverage of the CBS series EXTANT, scheduled to air on the CBS Television Network.

Photo By Sonja Flemming/CBS

Pilot -- Re-entry" " -- EXTANT: CBSÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚Â™s new summer series EXTANT is a mystery thriller starring Academy Award-winner Halle Berry as ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚ÂœMolly Woods,ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚Â€Ã‚Â a female astronaut trying to reconnect with her family after returning from a year in outer space. Her mystifying experiences in space lead to events that will ultimately change the course of human history. EXTANT premieres Wednesday, July 9 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) Pictured (L-R) Goran Visnjic as John Woods and Pierce Gagnon as Ethan Woods

Photo By CBS

Halle Berry stars as an astronaut with a mysterious secret on 'Extant.' It debuts on CBS on Wednesday, July 9th at 8 p.m.

Despite this “Rosemary's Baby”-meets-“Alien” scenario, “Extant” — a Steven Spielberg production that debuts at 8 p.m. Wednesday on CBS — is warmer, homier and, in many ways, brighter than typical sci-fi dramas. In short, its tone is closer to Spielberg's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” than his other sci-fi series, the gloom-and-doom “Falling Skies.”

Even the strange experience aboard Molly's space station is emotional rather than horrifying. It comes across more as an ethereal dream than graphic contact.

By contrast, a shower scene at home between Molly and her husband John (Goran Visnjic) is very sensual — and human.

There's a “warmth in the heart” at the center of “Extant,” was how Mickey Fisher, “Extant's” creator and executive producer, described his first TV series in a recent teleconference call with critics.

“It's not a dystopian world,” he said. “We want it to be something that, you know, people could relate to ... this story about this family that people would appreciate.”

Berry, in her first regular role in a TV series since the short-lived “Who's the Boss” spinoff “Living Dolls” in 1989, also grounds the show, keeping it real.

The little touches help. She and her son share ice cream cones; she empties the garbage; at a barbecue, she jokes with her friends about not having an alcoholic drink in 13 months.

Of course, there are futuristic bits as well, moments that remind us that Molly and her family are not in the world we know today. The cars don't have drivers. Her son's toy glides through the air like an actual spaceship. The waste Molly carries out is disposed of so efficiently it doesn't even look like trash.

“Extant” show runner Greg Walker said he wanted the drama to have futuristic elements, but ones that are “accessible” and seem like “a logical evolution of the technology that we have.”

“We have this sort of mandate that we gave ourselves early on that we never wanted it to be just about the gadgets,” he said. “We never want it to be just about the cool stuff, we want it to be about the characters. So it always had to be in service of the story.”

The family's most treasured “gadget” is Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), the Woods' son. Unable to have children the natural way, John brings one of his own creations into their home to raise. Ethan is a “humanich,” an extremely lifelike robot, a boy reminiscent of the one in Spielberg's 2001 sci-fi film “A.I.”

Ethan, however, seems to be behaving strangely ever since Molly returned. Does he sense something different about his mom — the weird new life inside her perhaps — that's making him act more aggressively, even violently?

It makes one understand why there's resistance to John's pitch to get financing for thousands of such robot children for infertile couples. What's to stop the androids from joining together and turning against the human population?

To questions about why Fisher decided to combine two major sci-fi elements — an extraterrestrial baby and an A.I. son — in one show, he said he saw it as writing “about a family and kind of grounding it in a family ... that's pretty rich territory.”

But could “Extant” be too rich? In one episode, we're hit not only with the mysteries of Molly's pregnancy and Ethan's behavior, but also a possible conspiracy brewing at the private company that sent her into space, not to mention a spooky warning from someone whom everyone thinks is dead.

After seeing just one hour of the 13-episode series, it's tough to determine just how good — or potentially confusing — the CBS drama will turn out to be.

That said, I'll give the intriguing “Extant” opener major props for this: It certainly left me wanting more.

Jeanne Jakle's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in mySA, and she blogs at Jakle's Jacuzzi on mySA.com. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.